Relay run brings attention to Sask.'s high HIV rates

Danita Wahoopsewyan was diagnosed with HIV on March 12, 2005 and has faced nearly a decade of misunderstanding and discrimination. "Friends in the beginning, they didn't want to hang out with me. I had my family, before they (were) educated, I was not allowed to kiss my grandchildren ... it really hurt."

Danita Wahoopsewyan was diagnosed with HIV on March 12, 2005 and has faced nearly a decade of misunderstanding and discrimination. “Friends in the beginning, they didn’t want to hang out with me. I had my family, before they (were) educated, I was not allowed to kiss my grandchildren … it really hurt.”

“I’ve turned this into a blessing,” said Wahoopsewyan, who now travels Canada educating at-risk communities and advocating for better HIV treatment.

Wahoopsewyan was in Victoria Park on Tuesday, as another group travelling across Canada arrived in Regina trying to draw attention to high HIV/AIDS rates. The Canadian AIDS Quilt has more than 640 six-by-three foot panels – each one representing lives lost to HIV/AIDS.

The quilt, in conjunction with the Mylan Relay for Hope, aims to increase awareness and funding for HIV/AIDS, but discussing the stigma attached to HIV is just as crucial.

The relay started in St. John’s on April 21 as a campaign to raise greater awareness and support for HIV/AIDS research, education, and services. Thirty-six runners are participating in the 8,500-kilometre run heading to Hope B.C. Among them is Curtis Bouchard from Halifax. “There hasn’t been a national awareness campaign in over 10 years, we’re sort of due for this sort of thing,” said Bouchard, who started his part of the relay in Winnipeg. “If you have a big, national campaign like this, it inspires people. It’s bigger than me and you.”

Saskatchewan has the highest rate of new HIV cases in all of Canada, more than twice the national average. At the epidemic’s peak of new infections in 2008 the province had 20 new cases per 100,000 people, while the national average was nine. Seventy-five per cent of new infections were due to drug injections and sharing of needles, while aboriginal people were- and remain – disproportionally represented in HIV statistics.

Brian Weins, executive director of at AIDS Program South Saskatchewan (APSS), has been working to fight these numbers through preventive measures, like needle exchanges and community education.

“Providing harm reduction supplies to people who are using injection drugs is a deterrent of (an) increased risk of HIV. And it doesn’t actually increase the use of illegal injection drugs,” said Weins.

In 2010, the Saskatchewan government estimated HIV/AIDS cost the province $40 million annually. As such, the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region and APSS have sought to get dirty needles off the streets through such programs.

Of the estimated 71,000 people in Canada with HIV, nine per cent are aboriginal. It is believed 25 per cent of HIV positive people are unaware of their status.

“I think there is a perception within Canada that in some ways, maybe we’ve won the battle with HIV/AIDS, and that just isn’t the case,” said Weins.

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